I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.

Entries tagged with yay hand drawn animation

Because I'll never get 100 posts done if I don't do them! And to segue on nicely from the last one...

In 1999 to much fanfare and celebrity voices, a tv series of Watership Down was made. The film was awesome, but there still was a lot of fodder left in the book, and I was hoping for something akin to the Animals of Farthing Wood, complete with darkness, if not baby mice impaled on thorns or Watership's own bunny coughing blood trapped in a snare.

But wile Farthing Wood was a European collaboration, this one came with help from across the pond, Canada to be exact. And while a similar partnership brought about a pretty good Redwall adaption around the same time, this one was...not as good. But to be fair, it was in the shadow of a bunny snuff film brilliant previous adaptation.

Everyone knows animation is just for kids. And so animated bunnies must be doubly for kids, right? Look at that cute dvd cover! Bunnies!

And that's how children everywhere learned to fear rabbits (seriously, I've had pet rabbits, those things can fuck you up!). And yet, it was awesome!

I was a squeamish child, so I had to watch most of this through my fingers until I learned the spots to look away. But I still watched it so many times I could learn when to look away.

There's just something about Watership Down. It's very much the opposite to Disney; many of the characters are hard to tell apart unless you're paying attention, the distinct lack of big cute eyes, the gloomy and subtle yet beautiful watercolor backgrounds, the swearing. I mean, how many movies got a blatant 'PISS OFF!' past the censors?

After 3 years, it looks like Dust: An Elysian Tail is nearing completion, with a promised release date of "2012." And it still looks so very, very pretty! Damn, I'm going to have to steal the Sibling's X Box to play this!

It gave me the opportunity to see the Lion King in the cinema for the first time. It only took 17 years!

Well, actually the second, as I saw it in 3D last week, but because Sibling can never arrive on time we got stuck in the first row and spent the whole thing looking up Simba's nose! Place was packed for a 17 year old movie! This time I was on my own so nice and early to get a seat right in the middle for a perfect view. And I got to sit through the end credits without being rushed because someone</i? needs to run outside for a cigarette. It wasn't as busy as the first time, but still quite a crowd.

Thanks to some marginally better promotion for the dvd release, I finally watched Winnie the Pooh. And I'll admit, it is freaking adorable and definitely deserves to go to the top of the list of Disney's Pooh output. As far as crossover appeal goes, it's right up there with Friendship is Magic (yes, yes, I know. Everything comes back to Ponies.)

So why you fail so hard at promoting it Disney, why? All there was over here was a theatrical trailer and some half assed promotions. And in the US someone had the bright idea to put it up against Harry Potter!

The Secret of Kells is an absolutely gorgeous film, each still picture is beautiful in its own right but it is only when you see it moving you can see how impressive the animation is, at taking extremely stylized characters and giving them life, how fluid the movement.

Channel Four's New Years Father Ted night triggered a mix of delightful and sad nostalgia, with the added sadness of the reminder of Dermot Morgan's passing just after filming. But is impossible to be misrable when you have the glory of My Lovely Horse:

And it reminded me of the made of cute Christmas animation the First Snow of Winter he did a voice for, and lo and behold it's on You Tube also:

Sadly the style doesn't make it obvious that this was done by the A team of feature Disney animators in Burbank, the bright colour pallet of the computer makes it look very similar to the Pooh cashins movies of the past decade. And it's opening in America against Harry Potter the Finale part two.

First it's a Diana Wynne Jones novel and now the Borrowers! I remember that from when the Beeb used to do Sunday teatime family dramas. It was rather twee as I recall, but nostalgia improves everything.

I had a complete nightmare trying to get to see this film, stupid cinemas selling out. But I finally managed to see it today. And I liked it. Very pretty, typical Disney, and I now have a favorite Disney pairing, where both prince and princess get to have a personality! Plus it had ( spoilers )

One of those animated projects I've been keeping an eye on is An Elysian Tail, an animated film that has been in production for many years but as it is being done by just one person I think that can be forgiven.

But not only making an animated film, Dean Dodrill has also created a game, with only outside help on the score. Everything else, art, animation and programming has been done by him. And good lord is it pretty!

It won Microsoft's Dream-Build-Play competition. Not having an X Box I won't be able to play this which makes me sad, the closest I'm going to get is looking at the footage on youtube. But that animation is just gorgeous, and it's been animated by hand. Take that 3d animation!

I'm struggling with that happiness meme because my face is hurting. Damn toothache! I went to the dentists today but as he couldn't see anything obviously wrong beyond a hairline crack he can't do anything about yet because it's not infected, I was just sent away to get some sensitive toothpaste and see if that helps. I'm going to go take some heavy duty painkillers, if that helps that'll make me happy.

Hayao Miyazaki's stuff is always soooo pretty. I could just sit back and watch it without sound.

Watching Andy Murray play at Wimbledon, and it looks like they've finally had an excuse to roll out the new roof. This has been the only time people have actually been hoping for rain at Wimbledon and what happens? Glorious sunshine of course.